Thursday 25 August 2016

Manchester Sketchkit

This summer has been a fast and furious one, hence my blog silence...many apologies to interested parties!

Heading for the 2016 International USK Symposium  in Manchester the following week, some of us photographed and/or drew our sketchkit. ‘Urban Sketching’ is all about drawing and painting on location, so the challenge is to organise and minimise the kit as efficiently as possible!




This was my first rough draft, on a handmade ‘concertina’ sketch booklet, but my pens didn’t like the paper, which was a fairly soft and absorbent watercolour paper...so I didn’t linger on that one!




My next attempt, this time broaching a tinted paper sketchbook, was much better, and I enjoyed doing this one!

As I had decided to spend July rediscovering watercolour for myself, responding to a Facebook challenge, this is the listI began to come up with! The list below describes the items in my picture, and isn’t my complete kit, as some items are carried in a belt pouch or my pockets!  The aim however is to make the whole thing as portable as possible.

  1. Folding watercolour palette, featuring empty ‘wells’ into which to squeeze tube paint.
  2.  Short ‘rigger’ brush, fitting inside palette
  3.  Piston-filled brushpen, containing clear water
  4. Uniball ‘Eye’ fine rollerball pen (for emergency use only) - I prefer the Japanese fine Platinum Carbon drawing pen (ink bottle pictured above) for drawing, but always try to carry backup in the form of spares and refills etc where possible. The pen I carry in my belt-pouch, which will feature in another article.
  5. Short clear plastic ruler - I never use one for drawing, but it’s a useful thing to carry ‘on the road’!
  6. The little wallet pictured underneath the palette here is made of a canvas-like material, and wraps neatly around my folded palette, a small plain A6 Moleskine Reporter’s Notebook, and a small pencil tin containing half a dozen little synthetic brushes!
  7. The pencil-case contains the bottom bit of an old milk bottle (much lighter than a glass jar for water!), some tissues, a small jar of white opaque qouache paint, AND spare tubes of paint in my preferred range!
  8. Also pictured are two ink bottles - both have good sealing lids (if in doubt I decant ink into leakproof Nalgene bottles) , containing Platinum Carbon ink and a beautiful blue-grey fountain pen ink which I use for drawing!




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